Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

Hello horror fans and welcome to a special spur of the moment Thursday. I have been too busy to write for this last week but today I've got a little something for you to chew on. As most of you know that I am a big horror novel fan, it is my favorite genre in literature and I feel like I read'em all. As a child my favorite collection of horror stories was Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. They were scarier than Goosebumps but not too scary to give me nightmares. The perfect read for a 10 year old. Over time my families original collection was lost but a few years ago I purchased an all in one collection of the books by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Tonight I am taking in an early viewing of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, directed by Guillermo del Toro. Before the movie I wanted to re-read some of my favorite short stories these books have to offer.

1) The Girl Who Stood On A Grave
Anyone who is unfamiliar with these stories, they are all urban legends and folk tales. Similar to the kinds you tell with your friends around a camp fire. This story imparticular is is no different and I appreciate it's simplicity. The Girl Who Stood On A Grave is about kids at a party one night who tells one girl not to stand on a grave at night because the person in that grave will grab you and pull you under. The girl doesn't believe that old superstition and the other kids make bet that it's not just an old wives tale. They tell her to take their knife and plunge it in a grave so they will know if she had been there or not. She goes and when she plunges the knife into the ground she finds that she can't move. Something has got ahold of her like the they said. In the morning the kids come to the grave to find the girl dead. She had accidentally stabbed her skirt into the ground and she died of fright.

2) Wonderful Sausage
This one is deliciously scary, it is too good to pass on. Wonderful Sausage is about a jolly butcher who gets angry with his wife one night and kills her. Instead of turning himself in he feeds her to his meat grinder and sells her to his town. The sausage made of his wife is so delicious that it sells out and the butcher has an horrible idea. He uses the best hogs he can to make his special sausage...and anyone who looks like they are pretty tasty. Kittens and puppies, too. Soon people start to go missing and the butchers sausage scheme comes undone. No one knows what happened to the butcher. Some say he was fed to his hogs or to his meat grinder. What we do know is that he was never seen again.

3) The Bad News
This one is funny, if you can believe it. It's about two brothers, Todd and Leon, who love baseball. They love it so much that they played as children, watched games consistently as adults and talked about baseball all the time. One day Leon asks Todd if they play baseball in heaven. The pair decided that whoever got to heaven first would have to tell the other somehow. Todd goes first and visits his brother one day. When asked if you play baseball in heaven, Todd syas that he has good news and bad news. The good news is yes, they play baseball in heaven, just as they did when they were kids. The bad news was that Leon was pitching tomorrow. Don't you just love that one? I know I do.

4) The Babysitter
Out of all the stories, this one is my favorite. It scares me the most because of how true to life it is. Everyone knows this one, the babysitter is working one night when she starts getting unsettling phone calls from an anonymous caller. In this rendition of this classic urban legend, the mad man caller first laughs hysterically over the phone. Each call afterwards is a count down. After the thrift call the babysitter gets really scared and calls the operator. They tell her that the call is coming from inside the house and to get out while they called the police. As they ran out the door a strange man with a wild smile started after them down the stairs. He was later arrested. This story inspired the horror classic "When A Stranger Calls" which has the one of the scariest movie openings of all time, if you're asking me.

There ya go, a little list of my favorite Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. I love them all but these are my top four. Which are your favorites? Are you a fan of these books too? And how do you feel about the new movie? I'm hoping for the best and that it will deliver. I have faith in del Toro, let's hope I don't eat those words. I'll be posting about it tomorrow so stay tuned and stay spooky!

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Introduction

Do you like horror movies? Of course you do or else you wouldn't be here. I love horror and spend most of my days watching and reading all the best and worst horror has to offer. It is here where I can talk about my love of the macabre with like-minded creeps and weirdos. So, here's a little about me; I love to create. I am in need of an outlet to spread all of my horror creations to people who I think will enjoy it. Even if you don't, at least I can say that I tried. Something else about me; this is not my first time trying my hand at running a blog. Unfortunately I start this process then, whenever I get a little bit busy, I drop it completely. This time I want this to work. Just to prove to myself that I am passionate about the things that interest me. Besides, I watch horror movies, read scary books, and create creepy art just about everyday. So there is no reason why I can't take a little time out of my day to post an update or review of my favorite books, movies, ...

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